Category: Phil Bernstein

Sarah Palin’s Challenge — Our Instinctive Biases

When faced with a new piece of information, we filter the item through our own internal biases in an attempt to make sense of it. The recent Vice Presidential choices of Barack Obama and John McCain gave me an interesting illustrative example.

When Barack announced Joe Biden, the conversation was about Biden’s experience, his voting record, his speaking ability — whether he could help Obama win, and whether he’d make a good President.

This morning the McCain camp announced that Sarah Palin would be McCain’s running mate. The first person — female — I discussed this with knew as little as I did about Palin. In other words, basically nothing.

Her first questions, in rapid succession and at least partially in jest, were:

How old is she?

What does she look like?

Is she fat?

I suspect, for better or worse, this is the initial prism through which many of us will view McCain’s choice.

Am I wrong?

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A Little Irony

This doesn’t really have anything to do with advertising — at least not directly — but my wife just alerted me to the fact that the man who co-wrote the best-selling travel guide 100 Things To Do Before You Die has died at the age of 47.

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Using Viral Video: What Do You Want to Accomplish?

My colleague Adam Orth recently handed me Ken Wheaton’s Advertising Age column about Extended Stay Hotels. The column concerns a video, allegedly authorized by the client, in which an attractive woman licks pretty much everything in a hotel room — including the toilet. This apparently is intended to demonstrate that Extended Stay Hotel rooms are clean.

The video’s since been taken down by YouTube, but as of this writing can still be seen here.

Assuming that the video is a legitimate viral video attempt, it’s worth asking what the client was hoping to accomplish. They certainly raised awareness — Wheaton says the video received over 300,000 views, and it’s likely that many, if not most, of the viewers had never heard of Extended Stay Hotels before. Count me among them.

If “awareness” was the goal, then mission accomplished.

But will that awareness result in higher occupancy or improved profits? My brain now “knows” something about Extended Stay Hotels. But it’s not “Boy, are their rooms clean!”

It’s “She licked the toilet! She licked the toilet!”

Given the choice between booking a room at Extended Stay or making a reservation just about anywhere else, I’m going for Anywhere Else.

But I’m a sample size of one. What do you think? Leave a comment below.

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Should You Click an Ad to “Support” a Blog?

Interesting discussion happening in the Comments field at TechSoapbox. It was prompted by a post on Seth Godin’s blog that reads, in part:

If every time you read a blog post or bit of online content you enjoyed you clicked on an ad to say thanks, the economics of the web would change immediately. You don’t have to buy anything (though it’s fine if you do). You just have to honor the writer by giving them a click.

Ahmed of Techsoapbox takes issue with Seth’s approach, calling it “cheating”. Seth doesn’t post comments on his blog, but Ahmed does — and it’s producing an often-thoughtful, sometimes-heated conversation.

For the record, I lean toward Ahmed’s side, but not strongly. The pay-per-click model only works for the advertiser if the clicks come from genuine prospects. If the advertiser has to pay for a bunch of extra clicks from folks who aren’t truly interested, the advertising will ultimately cease.

On the other hand, some of the “support clicks” could come from people who might need the product or service, but who would otherwise not have paid attention to the ad. So the support clicks might create a positive ROI after all.

The results of Seth’s approach will ultimately depend on how relevant the ad, and the offer, is to the lives of the readers. Which sounds a whole lot like every other form of advertising.

What do you think? Feel free to weigh in in the comments section below.

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An Interesting Way to Beat Call Reluctance

Those of us who use cold calling as part of our marketing arsenal sometimes run into call reluctance — we just can’t bring ourselves to pick up the phone and call a complete stranger. Afterwards, when we’ve gotten the meeting, fear of rejection stops us from asking for the order.

Chris Sparhawk, an amateur advice-giver in Portland (he has a home-made booth on the street, a la Lucy Van Pelt, and gives free advice to anyone who stops by) offered up an interesting way to beat the fear. According to Casey Parks of the Oregonian, Sparhawk was talking with a man who had trouble asking for dates.

Sparhawk had the same problem once. His future wife worked as a florist, and for months he bought flowers just to see her. Finally, she asked him out.

Now, he puts his own experience to use: “Start asking people out, and see how many no’s you can get,” he says.

The guy smiles. “I can totally get no’s.”

Best sales tip I’ve read this month.

 

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